Halfpipe, Women

Along with the women’s slopestyle, women’s halfpipe was one of the two newest additions to the Olympic freestyle skiing program, having been contested only once before in 2014. At those Games, the winner of the halfpipe contest had been American Maddie Bowman, who had also won the superpipe event at the Winter X Games every year since 2013, with the exception of 2017, when she was third. That year’s champion had been Marie Martinod of France, who was also the runner-up at the 2014 Olympics and the most recent edition of the World Championships. Either would have made a good selection for a favorite, while Japan’s Ayana Onozuka, the Olympic bronze medalist and runner-up at the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Winter X Games, as well as the reigning World Champion, would have been a fair choice for the final podium spot.

Ranked number one in the world overall, however, was Canadian Cassie Sharpe, whose greatest achievements prior to the 2018 Olympics were probably her silver medal from the 2015 World Championships and bronze from the 2018 Winter X Games. She came out in first after the qualification round, but was followed closely behind by Martinod, while Onozuka and Bowman finished somewhat down the list in fifth and sixth. In the final, however, Sharpe was completely superior, with her score in the first run being sufficient to have won the gold medal. She did not relax, however, and scored even higher on her second run and, with gold virtually guaranteed, attempted in an incredibly difficult and rarely-seen trick for her final attempt. Although she failed to land it successfully, her prior efforts had secured her a gold medal. Martinod pulled off an impressive series of tricks in her attempts to catch up to Sharpe, but the Canadian was simply too dominant, and Martinod had to settle once again for silver.

Bowman, on the other hand, had a streak of bad luck and failed to complete any of her landings, placing her at the bottom of the results. Onozuka performed well, but ended up in fifth after she was outclassed by two other Americans. Annalisa Drew, the 2016 Winter X Games bronze medalist in the superpipe, was briefly third, but she was bumped off the podium by her teammate and friend Brita Sigourney, the runner-up at the most recent Winter X Games, who claimed Olympic bronze.